


Limbic Resonance

by Baamon5evr



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sense8 (TV) Fusion, F/F, F/M, Gen, Iris-centric, Mostly Gen, Past Character Death, Sense 8 au, Trans Female Character, trans Linda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6271405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baamon5evr/pseuds/Baamon5evr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m not an expert in what’s going on, Harrison will explain it to you but basically there’s eight of us: Me, you, Linda, Snart, Cisco, Caitlin, Barry and Hartley. We’re all connected to each other: mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We’re called sensates."</p><p>Or the one where Iris inexplicably becomes seven other people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbic Resonance

Iris West had a pounding headache. That in and of itself wasn't anything spectacularly new, she had been having headaches periodically ever since her fiancé Eddie died the prior year but this headache was different. It pounded through her head and left her feeling disoriented and off-kilter for the whole day. No matter what pain killers she took it didn't help. Her dad had nearly convinced her to go to the doctor's office when the headache faded so she didn't bother getting checked out. She figured that was the end of it.

She couldn't have been more wrong.

**~*~*~**

She meets Snart first.

She was in her apartment, not the one she had shared with Eddie, she couldn't stay there, but her new apartment closer to her father's home. It was smaller but cozy and Iris didn't mind the silence. She was in the kitchen cooking dinner for herself when she heard a loud popping sound that sounded suspiciously like a gun. She wondered briefly if her Netflix movie had started on its own or something and made to walk to the living room before stopping abruptly in the doorway. She was no longer in her home, her living room was not her living room anymore, she was in what looked like a bank vault in the middle of a gunfight. She ducked and ran further into the vault and hid behind a wall to avoid being shot. She breathed heavily to herself.

What the hell was going on? How did she get there? Why was she in the middle of a gun battle?

"Well hello." A deep voice said. Iris looked over to see a man across from her squinting at her with both disbelief and curiosity. The man across from her whose face was vaguely familiar wore a dark blue parka, dark-tinted sunglasses and had a huge gun in his hand. As Iris looked at him she realized they were back in her apartment.

"Okay, I'm officially losing my mind." She mumbled to herself. Obviously Eddie's death has caused her to take a swan dive off the deep end. The man was looking her up and down but not in a lecherous or primal fashion, more assessing and calculating.

"Daring choice of wardrobe. Wouldn't think of it to cash a deposit but hey, to each their own." Iris looked down at her pajama shorts and tank top before self-consciously pulling her cardigan closed. Even though he didn't seem interested in her body she still would rather not be on display for a man with a gun.

"Why are you in my apartment?" He rose an eyebrow at her.

"This is a bank." He indicated as Iris looked around again. She was in the bank once more but the man was looking around slightly confused.

"Interesting... nice couch." Iris scrunched her eyebrows together before her response was cut off by a hail of bullets flying towards them or him, Iris had no idea what was happening anymore.

"Snart, come out with your hands raised!" A voice shouted.

"I don't think so boys. I don't see jail in my immediate future." The man responded. A memory was suddenly sparked in Iris' head.

"I know you. You're Leonard Snart, Captain Cold. My father told me about you."

"Well then you know that however you found yourself here, you're in a very compromising situation and I'm between a rock and a hard place so..." He trailed off as he grabbed her and stuck his cold gun to her head, using her as a human shield. Iris' heart stuttered in her chest but she didn't do anything rash or crazy.

"Alright, this is how it's going to be. You're going to let me go or I'll turn this girl into a popsicle." Iris looked at the men who were pursuing Snart, cops in vests with machine guns. They were looking at him with clear confusion.

"What girl? Don't try to trick us Snart, lower your weapon and surrender peacefully." The vault they were in was lit up and the metal was shiny. She could see Snart's reflection in it and could see that his gun was pointed at himself not at her.

"I'm not really here." She mumbled to herself before saying the same to him, indicating his reflection.

"Well, this changes things." He commented before suddenly turning the gun on the cops and shooting out a burst of white frost. Iris couldn't do anything to stop him as the cops dodged the blast and Snart ducked behind the walls again. Iris was at a complete loss at what was happening and what she was doing here but she did know that Snart was a murderer and these men were in danger so whether this was some dream or a hallucination Iris still had to do something. She stood on the other side of Snart and stared at him as he cursed silently to himself before looking over at her with a glare.

"So what are you then? My conscience or something, because I gotta say you're a little late to the party."

"I don't know what's going on here, how I'm here in a bank vault or how you're in my living room, whichever it is, but I do know enough about you. My father's a detective, he's told me about you."

"I'm standing here holding a gun and you're telling me you're a cop's daughter." He pointed out.

"I think we established that you're the only one who can see me." Snart rolled his eyes with a bit of a sigh.

"Okay, say your piece. What's your proposition?" She would ask how he thought she had a proposition at all but as the cops called out to him again she decided to barrel forward.

"You're a thief whose obsessed with time."

"True."

"Yet you kill people."

"It's a fun pastime, you should try it." Iris repressed the urge to smack him.

"What I'm saying is you waste time you could spend getting away from the crime scenes hurting people. If you're so great a thief, why can't you pull off your heists without killing?" Snart looked contemplative at that.

"You've got my attention."

"Let them arrest you."

"And you've swiftly lost it."

"It's not like you won't just break out again, I know your track record. You surrender peacefully now because you're not getting past them without hurting someone and of course you'll break out again but I want to see if you are really as good as I've heard. I bet you can't do this without hurting people."

"You're seriously challenging me right now?" Iris rose an eyebrow at him as he looked at her with something approaching respect not that she needed a serial criminal's respect.

"Alright boys, I'm coming out!" He called before looking back at her.

"What's your name?" He asked curiously.

"Iris. Iris--"

"West." He completed cutting her off.

"How did you...?"

"Not sure but I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy figuring it out. See you soon, Iris West." Iris watched him leer at her once more before he walked out, hands raised to surrender. As he passed her his body obscured her view of the room and when he walked past she was back in her apartment. She covered her eyes with her hands and dropped them after a minute but she was still in her apartment. She walked to her couch and sat down heavily onto it while rubbing her hands over her face.

_What the hell was that?_

**~*~*~**

She meets Linda next.

Iris had made a firm decision to just ignore whatever that experience with Snart had been. She looked him up on the internet and found out the same day she had her experience he was arrested for armed robbery but honestly that didn't prove Iris was or was not out of her mind and so rather than confront that she simply ignored it and went on with her life. She focused on her job at CCPN and her family.

She was on her way to see Wally when she had her next experience. As she walked down the street towards Wally's neighborhood she blended in seamlessly with the crowd of darker, mostly African-American faces. She looked down at her watch to check the time before looking back up. Her eyes widened as she walked. She was where she was before but everyone around her was different, the Black faces replaced with those of Asian people, Korean if Iris had to guess. She looked behind her wondering if she missed something but there was no sign of any of the people who had just been there. She kept walking before she spotted a woman walking towards her who looked just as confused as Iris. They stopped before each other, staring at one another, sizing each other up. The woman was a little taller than Iris with short,  wavy dark hair and a cute dark blue dress along with a white coat sporting black piping and accents. It was a look she would complement in anyone other than a figment of her overactive, grief-addled mind.

"H-Hello." The woman said hesitantly.

"Hello." Iris replied just as cautiously, looking around to see her location had shifted.

"Where am I?" She asked the girl.

"I'm in Coast City, that's in Seoul."

"Seoul in South Korea?" Iris asked looking around excitedly.

"That's where I am. I guess you are too. Where am I?"

"Central City it's in Missouri. That's a state in America."

"I know, I've been here before on business." The girl replied with a tremulously smile and Iris tried to return it but she was suddenly struck by the fact that she was talking to a woman in South Korea in her head.

"I'm sorry but I need to continue about my business now, in Central City." The girl looked a little downtrodden but nodded in understanding. Iris walked around her and was back in Central City and walking towards Wally's house before she noticed the woman was walking beside her.

"You're still here?"

"I don't know how to get home. Barry and Caitlin hadn't figured out how this works yet." The girl said with a shrug. Iris raised an eyebrow.

"Who's Barry and Caitlin?"

"Oh, they're just other people I've met like this." She replied, indicating herself and Iris.

"Well, what do they think?"

"They think we come to each other when we need each other, when we need help or something."

"I don't need help." The girl was silent.

"Do you need help?" Iris asked reluctantly after a moment.

"I guess I wouldn't say no to advice." Iris looked around. She was already early for her lunch with Wally and if this person was a manifestation of her subconscious or a hallucination maybe if Iris gave her advice she'd go away. She led the girl to a largely deserted fountain and sat on the edge with her.

"I'm Iris, by the way."

"Linda."

"So what's wrong, Linda?" Linda sighed before looking down.

"My father is the CEO of a big corporation here in Coast City. I'm the CFO, I like working here and not just because I'm really good at what I do, I actually like the work. My father doesn't care much for me, his daughter who was born a boy and decided to become a girl, a disgrace to the family name, a family of strong men. The person he is, the life he leads, the people around him... I'm an embarrassment. My younger brother is the golden child who is embezzling money from the company and now someone needs to go down for it."

"And I'm guessing that person they want to send away is you." Iris took in all Linda had said, the self-loathing when she incorrectly classified herself as "deciding" to be a girl, the resentment when she called her brother the golden child, the pride when she mentioned her father's corporation. This girl was obviously stuck in a snake pit and fancied herself a snake charmer.

"My brother is a spoiled brat, he won't survive jail."

"What about you?"

"My father doesn't care for me but he's made sure I'm classified as female on all my records so I'll be going to a women's prison and that's better than..."

"Not going to prison at all is better. You didn't do anything wrong and if your father and brother are okay with you going to prison for this and ruining your reputation then they don't really love you." Linda scoffed a little.

"They don't have to love me. I love them and they're family, you know? You do stupid things for family." Iris sighed in agreement. She had taken the fault for Wally many a time but she also let him bear the consequences of larger missteps.

"I get the feeling no matter what I say you'll still go through with this."

"I didn't know how ready I was to let an axe drop on my head until now. What does that say about me?"

"That you're destructively selfless." Iris said in a deadpan voice. Both she and Linda shared a bittersweet laugh at that.

"You deserve better you know. You're strong, unbelievably strong for realizing who you really are and becoming that person and even for this sacrifice, that I don't agree with mind you, but it's your life and maybe you'll be better off in jail than with that family of yours anyway." Linda looked at her with a teary smile and Iris half-frowned, half-smiled when she realized tears were welled in her eyes... at a woman who was in her head.

 _This is all in your head, Iris._ She reminded herself. She jumped up suddenly, looking around to see if anyone was staring at her. She could see an older couple looking at her like she had two heads. Did it look like she was talking to herself?

“I, um, I need to get going but… I hope things work out for you Linda. You matter too.” Iris didn’t look back at Linda as she walked away towards Wally’s apartment.

_Okay Iris, you are past crazy now._

**~*~*~**

She meets Patty next, well not really.

She had taken a trip to the doctor by then. She didn’t tell them everything, if she mentioned that she was seeing people and having conversations in her head she’d be committed to a mental institution instantly. They took scans of her, ran test after test but everything came back normal and so Iris resolved again to ignore it because this was all crazy.

She had just woken up and was brushing her teeth the next time she had an experience. She had just finished and looked up in the mirror to make sure there was no toothpaste on her face but when she looked back she wasn’t staring at herself, she was staring at a man. Usually she would jump and it would give her pause but it wasn’t a man watching her from within her apartment, her reflection wasn’t in the mirror at all, it was just him. A tall man with brown hair and shaving cream on half of his jaw. She squinted in confusion. This was new. How was it happening? Was someone playing a prank on her? It seemed like something Wally would do.

The man seemed almost to smile softly at her before a noise to Iris’ right caught her attention and she looked away. When she looked back at the mirror the man was gone.

She shook the experience off as another noise caught her attention, she walked out of the bathroom and to her bedroom where a pretty blonde woman was sitting on the edge of her bed. Iris looked to her bedroom door which she always locked at night, the locks were still turned and they locked from the inside so she couldn't have broken in.

“Hi, I’m Patty and I know what you’re thinking, strange woman in my apartment, what the hell?” The blonde said with a friendly smile.

“I figure you’re giving yourself two options, either you’re crazy or something else is going on here, something impossible even.”

“I’m a journalist, I take things at face value. I don't have a lot of reason to believe in the impossible.”

“Linda mentioned that about you.” Iris rose an eyebrow.

“My hallucinations are talking about me to each other behind my back, that’s just great.” Patty laughed lightly.

“I'm not a hallucination.”

“Yeah? How can you prove that?” Patty looked contemplative before turning to talk to someone Iris couldn’t see… or could she? She concentrated on being where Patty was and suddenly she wasn’t in her apartment anymore, she was now in a more spacious suite, a studio apartment, the bed larger than her own and around her was a conceptually open living space. Patty was sitting on her bed with a scantily clad red-haired woman leaning against the headboard with a laptop in her lap.

“She wants to know how I can prove that this is all real.” Patty told the woman.

“Who’s this?” Iris asked. Patty turned back with a soft smile.

“This is my awesome, highly adaptable, thoroughly appreciated girlfriend Bette who puts up with entirely too much from me and somehow still loves me even though I talk to people in different cities in my head.” Bette looked in the direction Patty was looking and smiled.

“Hello there…”

“Iris. She’s new.” Patty explained.

“Hi, Iris.” Bette said politely.

“Hi Bette, nice to meet you even though I'm convinced you're a figment of my apparent psychotic break." Iris replied.

“Oh, Bette can’t hear you. She’s not a part of the cluster though she is definitely an honorary member.”

“Cluster?”

“It's what we call ourselves, the eight of us, well it’s what Harrison says we are.”

“I am super confused right now.” Patty smiled understandingly.

“I was confused too the first time Cisco just showed up in my apartment and then I saw Linda and then Hartley and when I saw him, I realized this all might be real. I’m not an expert in what’s going on, Harrison will explain it to you but basically there’s eight of us: Me, you, Linda, Snart, Cisco, Caitlin, Barry and Hartley. We’re all connected to each other: mentally, emotionally, spiritually. We’re called sensates. We can visit each other like we are doing now and even take control of each other’s bodies, which sounds weird and scary but can come in handy really.”

“This is…”

“I know, it sounds insane. I thought so too. I’m a detective, I work in facts and tangible evidence so trust me, I understand how difficult this must be for you and that you still probably think you’re insane. I wish I knew how to fix that.”

“I’ve got an idea.” Bette piped up.

“Why don’t you give Patty your phone number, Iris? She can call you and you can have someone else answer the phone for you to just confirm things for you.” Iris was skeptical about that. She was alone in her apartment but if it meant validating her sanity she would do it. So she gave Patty her phone number and walked next door to her neighbors' place along with Patty. Shawna answered the door with a slightly bemused expression. Iris thanked her lucky stars it wasn't Mark instead.

“Iris? What’s up? It’s early.” Iris was friendly enough with Shawna though not close, her request was going to sound crazy and bizarre at best. She looked at Patty and the blonde nodded encouragingly.

“Um, this is going to sound strange but do you mind picking up this call for me?” Shawna raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

“Tell her I’ve been stalking you and you need her to pretend to be your girlfriend to get me off your back.” Patty suggested. Iris couldn’t think of anything better to do so she just rolled with that.

“I know this all sounds weird but I went to a bar the other day and this girl bought me a drink and I figured why not, I’m single but I made the mistake of giving her my number after that and well, she’s been kind of harassing me ever since and well I--”

“Need a fake girlfriend to run her off.” Shawna finished.

“Yeah. I know it’s early, I’m really sorry, it’s not your problem--”

“Say no more Iris. I’ve got you.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much Shawna.”

"I'm actually really happy that you're getting out after everything with Eddie." Iris opened her mouth to answer that but her phone started ringing and she looked down to see a foreign number, Patty nodded to her to hand the phone to Shawna.

“Hello?” Patty said once Shawna answered.

“Hi, you’ve been harassing my girlfriend lately and I’m gonna need you to stop or there’ll be consequences.” Shawna said.

“Of course, I’m so sorry about this. I didn’t know she had a girlfriend.”

“Well, she does so back off.” Shawna handed the phone back over and gave Iris a smile.

“Call me any time you need a fake girlfriend again but for now I’m going back to sleep.” Shawna retreated to her apartment as Iris looked at her phone and spoke into it while walking back to her apartment.

“So that was… whoa.” She stopped as her voice seemed to echo around her.

“That’s so cool.” Patty’s voice echoed as well. It was like they were simultaneously talking and listening to each other, like they were both parties on either end of the call. Iris closed her door and leaned against it, clicking her phone off.

“Cool? This is crazy, I’m crazy.”

“I think we’ve established that you aren’t." Patty was sitting next to her leaning her head against the door and looking at her sympathetically.

“How is this a thing?”

“That’s for Harrison to explain but look at it this way, you’re not just you anymore, you’re we which means you’re never going to be alone again. We’re all just a thought away.” Patty was smiling at her brightly and though Iris felt unease and confusion and discomfort, Patty’s smile was warm and she found herself returning it and not dwelling on the craziness of all of this.

**~*~*~**

Over the next month Iris' head got very hectic with the seven other voices now occupying it. She could hear all of them chattering. It was not non-stop but she seemed to always have a dull buzzing in the back of her head.

Iris got visits from Snart who came to bother her with his presence though she'd admit his anecdotes, while dark, were funny, especially his story about mini marshmallows. Like she said, he was charismatic but she wasn't going to forget what he was. Linda and Patty were welcome whenever, especially Linda who was in jail now thanks to her selfless heart and Iris wished to do whatever to make her comfortable. Patty was a ball of sunshine who disturbed Iris' otherwise melancholy day. Most days the blonde dragged her to her place with Bette and the three of them would spend time together and talk, Patty acting as a middle-man for Bette and Iris.

It was a strange existence to settle oneself into and honestly she wasn't completely settled. Between Caitlin stressing about her issues with her fiancé, Barry stressing about work, Cisco stressing about having to see his family again with his brother's birthday around the corner and even Hartley, who was king douche of douches, stressing about coming out to his parents, Iris was even more stressed and anxious than before. She did not know how to compartmentalize all of it and the existence of other people’s emotions intertwining with her own was still hard to wrap her head around.

And then he showed up.

Harrison Wells was an unwelcomed fourth (fifth? Does the guy in the mirror count?) visit. He was not a part of her cluster so he didn't pop up in her apartment but as she was going to a 7/11 one night she caught sight of a man watching her across the street. Iris was a cop's daughter, her father taught her to fight and shoot a gun when she was young and she never went anywhere without her stun gun, her pepper spray and brass knuckles so she knew she could defend herself against this guy. She entered the store and began browsing the back aisles. She went to turn into the snack aisle to satisfy her candy craving (a byproduct of Cisco) when the man was suddenly blocking her path.

_Don’t panic or assume anything, Iris._

"Excuse me." She said, indicating the aisle he was blocking.

"Hello Iris." He replied, ignoring her words. She tensed, clutching her bag tighter.

"How do you know my name?"

"You know mine as well. I'm Harrison, I'm sure at least Cisco or Caitlin's mentioned me."

"Patty has. So you're the man who's going to explain all of this to me, Captain Exposition." Harrison smirked slightly. Iris did not feel all that at ease around him, like something else was lurking under the surface. The feeling was not all that unfamiliar to her. She felt it with Snart but it was different at the same time. With him Iris knew why she was uncomfortable. He was a charismatic serial thief and (ex-) killer and she was mentally connected with him. He had his uses. His dramatic flair was helpful to someone like Caitlin who didn't speak up nearly enough for herself or Barry who had trouble expressing himself and eventually Iris got used to the brand of darkness he carried with him but with Harrison there was a grating-under-the-skin kind of discomfort that accompanied his presence. She was usually very good about following her instincts but she also needed answers about what was going on, definitive answers that apparently only he could give her.

“You have questions, ask them.” He said as if reading her mind. Wait…

“Can you read my mind?” He chuckled ever so slightly.

“No, I can’t read your mind. I am, however, very good at reading faces. Those in your cluster can feel your emotions, especially when they’re heightened. They can share your memories and thoughts if you wish to share them, if you project them, but they can’t read your mind. Your thoughts are your thoughts unless you want otherwise.”

“Is that really true though? Patty said I wasn’t just me anymore.”

“No, you are now a part of a cluster of eight. Seven other people, each a part of your soul, a part of you. People who feel what you feel, can know what you know, can be inside of your body controlling it just as you are, whose life you can experience through their eyes. It is something special.”

“It’s certainly something. If I’m connected with them, how do I know what’s me? Patty said I’m we now and I… I don’t know if I’m ready to not be me anymore.”

“You’ll always be you. You’ll always be Iris West, you’re just… more now. You feel more now, you see more now, you understand more now, more than anyone else could ever understand.” Iris stared at him, the intensity in his gaze.

“When you say “anyone else” do you mean humans? I mean am I… Am I even human anymore?”

“What is human? An ability to reason? To imagine? To love or grieve? If so, we are more human than any human ever will be.”

“Yeah, needless to say, I’m not really into the whole “us and them” mentality. Historically it hasn’t gone so well for my people.” Harrison’s gaze on her took on an almost appreciative glint.

“I can’t deny that.” Something about his approval rubbed her the wrong way so she quickly asked another burning question to try to throw the look off of her.

“How did this happen anyway? No one who I’ve seen has mentioned anything about that in the times that we’ve talked.”

“Our kind, sensates, go back to prehistoric times but we have been all but wiped from existence. Whether it be through evolution or natural selection or… external intervention there were not much of us left. Myself and my wife Tess, we made a decision to try to bring back some glory, some life to our kind. We had to make a sacrifice. It was just a matter of making sure enough people with the potential to evolve were in Central City and then we could put our plan in motion. Tess died to give birth to your cluster… with some added help from my invention.”

“Invention?”

“My particle accelerator.” Iris suddenly got a flash of the event from a year ago. She and Eddie had been in the park that night on a date and then an ominous light shot up into the sky. When the machine exploded he ushered her to the car but he hadn’t made it in time for… he… and this man was the person who...

“Harrison. The particle accelerator. You’re Dr. Harrison Wells? The Dr. Harrison Wells whose particle accelerator exploded last year?” Iris felt numb, the words came out of her mouth matter-of-factly and devoid of any emotion.

“I needed it to explode in order for Tess’s sacrifice to actually mean something and trigger your cluster's evolution into sensates.” He explained it all like it was okay, an everyday occurrence but Eddie…

“You intentionally blew up the particle accelerator to make sure me and those seven other people became like you?” She felt like ice was coating her veins because if this was true, if the accelerator exploded to make her like this then Eddie...

“You always had that potential in you, I just unlocked it.”

“People got hurt, people… people died.” Harrison seemed to show remorse to this though it was a pale shadow of what Iris wanted to see.

“I know. Eight people, eight people died that night to give new life to your cluster. Theirs was a noble sacrifice, don’t think I don’t know that. I remember all of their names Jack Davenport, Daria Kim, Ralph Dibny, Will Everett, Al Rothstein, Bea Da Costa, Grant Emerson and--”

“Edward Thawne. Eddie. My fiancé.” Harrison’s lips pressed together but there was no surprise in his face. He knew. He knew who she was and what she lost and still he had the nerve to stand there talking to her like nothing happened.

“He died so that you could be reborn. I know that doesn’t make it hurt any less but he did not die in vain.” Iris realized she was shaking from head to toe, her body was a well of pent up anger and hurt and grief and heartbreak because if he was to be believed Eddie died because of her, because Harrison wanted her and with that realization the guilt she felt at Eddie’s death only strengthen tenfold. She could no longer look at this man, not without feeling the urge to yell at him or punch him or strangle him. She felt Snart lurking closer to the surface ready to take over for her should she need it. Like she said, he was good for something but she still had enough of her mental faculties to know that she needed to walk away before she did something she’d regret in the long run.

“I can’t be here. I have to go.” Iris began walking down the aisle, leaving her candy behind.

“Iris--”

“Don’t talk to me, leave me alone.”

“I know this is difficult right now, I know it’s hard to see that you are now a part of something greater than what you were a part of before. A family much deeper than you’ve ever known, a better understanding of yourself--”

“I don’t know anything about myself now! And now you’re telling me my fiancé died so I could become seven other people? I didn’t want to be this, I didn’t want to transcend human physics, I just wanted to be Eddie’s wife! I wanted him to be my husband and you took that away from me! You need to go, you need to get away from me because if you don’t I will let Snart take over and do whatever he wants with you. I bet he’s getting antsy in jail, I’m sure he could come up with some creative ways to hurt you.”

 **‘I could, just say the word.’** She heard his voice like a phantom in her head but despite her threat her fellow selves or sensates, whatever they were, were among the last people she wanted to see right now.

Iris walked away from Harrison ignoring the way the clerk stared after her. She walked brusquely down the street, trying not to let the tears clouding her eyes hinder her vision to where she couldn’t walk. She resisted the urge to run down the street only barely and felt her body surrender from her own control as one of the sensates took over her body to help her walk home, she didn't bother trying to figure out which one it was and let them walk her to her apartment before she pushed them out and took over herself.

She looked around her place. It was not the apartment she shared with Eddie, she couldn't be there anymore but her mind conjured images of him, of what could've been if she had gotten to share this place with him. To have him waiting for her, to see him cooking breakfast in the kitchen or have him in bed beside her or just to know that he was a phone call away but that wasn't going to happen, couldn't happen and she had managed to accept that. Impossibly she managed to accept the unimaginable and move on with her life, as strange as it was, and now here was this man who was supposed to have all the answers and his answer to her question was essentially that he killed her boyfriend so she could be reborn. She had killed Eddie by simply existing. It was her fault.

"Hey, no you can't think like that." Iris looked over to the new edition in the room.

The boy from the mirror.

Barry.

He was looking at her with compassion in his eyes and concern. Iris shook her head and looked away. A part of her wanted him gone, she didn't know if she wanted to stare at one of the people Eddie unknowingly died for but she also didn't know what she would do if he left her to her own devices so it was best to not be alone.

"Iris, this wasn't your fault. I know that's hard to see now but it really wasn't."

"Wells pretty much just said he set Eddie's death into motion so I could be "we" now, how is it not my fault? Eddie died for this! And I barely even know what this is!" Barry looked at her compassionately once more as she began sobbing in earnest. She could feel him pull her into a hug that was warm and had an undercurrent of electricity to it but it was also light and ghostly. He wasn't really here yet she could smell him, the scent of rain falling during a lightning storm. It was comforting in a way she didn't really want it to be.

"I know how hard this is. I felt really guilty too when... when my mom died. My father was wrongfully convicted. He's out now, he's been cleared but I blamed myself for not saving her, I blamed myself for not being able to save him from prison, I blamed myself for not finding the guy who really killed her. Honestly, I still blame myself." Iris felt a million things she could say to that well up on her tongue, some of them were biting, some were sarcastic but ultimately she landed on something softer.

"How do you live with this? How do you live with yourself?" She asked, her arms wrapped around Barry's shoulders as tears slipped past her eyes. She briefly wondered what she must look like to an outside observer, sitting there hugging thin air but she couldn't care about how she looked in that moment.

"You just tell yourself that every day you keep going for them. You keep going and try to help people like them and after a long enough time you start to think that what you're doing now balances out what you couldn't do then. Sorry, I'm not the wisest guy in the world and that isn't the most insightful thing ever but--"

"No, I get it. I..." Iris sighed, hugging Barry even tighter.

"I get it." This still hurt, this still _hurt_ her and it ripped wounds open she had only barely begun to close but she did understand what Barry meant.

She could not help Eddie now, he was gone and it hurt more than it had before but she knew that this couldn't break her. Whether that was because there were seven other hers holding her together she didn't quite know but she resigned herself to not worry about that and let herself be vulnerable enough to just cry for Eddie knowing that Barry's arms would remain strong around her and the comfort of the six other voices in her mind, even Snart and Hartley's, soothed her enough to let this dam break but she knew once it stopped flooding she wasn't going to sit idle.

Eddie used to tell her something every day before she went off to work.

_"Go ahead and save the world one article after another. Go be amazing, Iris West."_

She resigned herself to this new fork in the road but she was going to make sure that Eddie did not die in vain and whatever that meant, whether it meant making sure these seven other people didn't fall apart or whether that meant continuing her work as a journalist or whether that meant taking Wells down, whatever it was, she resigned herself to it and she was going to be amazing at it.


End file.
